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Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Won’t Somebody Please Save the Children

Has the world ended yet? No? Because people were grandstanding in order to further politicize the country and get people on their side because that’s the only thing they really care about?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Anyway! Today, because I feel like it, I’d like to talk about censorship. Yes, again. But I’m not going to go on about it forfourdays this time. I just want to say that I think the children can handle 20 BOY SUMMER and SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE. Oh but they’re keeping SPEAK (to the disappointment of one man…).

First, they’re talking about banning S5 because of the “crude language” (yes, that’s take directly from the article)? I have to ask, have any of these people ever been teenagers? Are they honestly saying they didn’t let loose a blue streak the second the adults were out of the room? Because I did. My friends did. Granted, it wasn’t nonstop cursing, but we never hesitated to use one. Sometimes we through one in there when there was no reason for it. Because we could.

They’re also upset about the violent content. Okay, maybe I get that. But it’s not like it’s there for the hell of it. We’re not assigning kids violent pornography to read; it’s actually part of the story, part of the meaning, part of the point.

Then, they’re critical of 20BS because “included questionable language, drunkenness, lying to parents and a lack of remorse.” No way! Get out! Teenagers never feel that way/do that stuff! And even if they did, we can’t have characters who are actually like them. That would be wrong.

You can bet I’m swearing right now. Come on! Parents: isn’t all that typical teenager behavior thing many teenagers do? Can you really tell a story like 20BS and not have “irresponsible behavior”?

Books are powerful, there’s no question about that. But they act like these books are demoralizing kids and I would give them more credit than that.

I know I don’t have kids so I can’t speak for what it’s like to teach and influence them, but parents, don’t they take more from their environment? From you?

You make an excellent couple of points in that a) these books just model normal teenage behaviour and b) we definitely need to give kids a bit more credit. I've always thought it ridiculous to suggest that a book (or a movie or a piece of music) could "make" a kid behave in a certain way.

I haven't read these books, and I'm certainly not in favor of censorship, but I have to point out that a single book can make an impact. When "The Sorrows of Young Werther" came out it triggered a wave of suicides among young people. There are similar examples in music as well. Kids and young adults are especially susceptible, and parents can't always control their children. Still, I wouldn't go do far as to ban books, we should be happy young people read at all. If they have a problem with foul language and violence, they should start with television and video games, not books.